I don’t know if everyone does this, but I can’t stop myself from turning perfectly good names into a variety of nicknames for any and all animals in my life. I’ve written about this before at Bleeding Espresso in my intro to a post about where Italian boys’ nicknames come from, but now it’s time to talk about Pinta for she has become the following:

Pinters
Pintaruccia (PintaROOcha)
Ruccia (ROOcha)
Roochers
The Rooch

And my personal favorite…

Pinters Magooch.

“I got your Pinters Magooch right here,” bleats The Rooch.

Do you do this with your goaties’ names? Other animals’ names? People’s names?

You’re definitely not alone on this one. It gets so bad my husband honestly doesn’t know which goat, or dog, I’m referring to. The one that’s not even close though is the buck whose name is Casanova but I always call him Buckwheat.

How funny! I have been known to do that with my dogs and cats names. Thus “Meggie” became “Megariners.” “Tito” (the other Westie) is “Titolini Berlusconi>” Awful, I know, but it rolls right off the tongue. Also my dear daughter Mia is sometimes “Meemers” or, worse, “Measles.”

Haha, I have a niece Mia, and her nickname is “Pujie” (pronounced POO-gee) Walk with me on the logic: “Mia Rose, stinky toes” is what started it. My grandmother had always said something smelled like a “pujack” if it smelled really bad, which she told us was a dirty old goat according to her Italian mother (I don’t know *what* this could be in dialect, but I’ve been trying to figure it out for years). Anyway from Pujack, came Pujie. Clear as mud! 😉

We do that but we tend to do the rhyming,singsong kind of names….Clyde-Hyde..Clyde the donkey likes his Clyde hide scratched..Meenie-Weenie , Weenie dog who tries all day to kill lizards… the list goes on! I find my self always making up goofy little rhyming songs when I am out with the animals!

I used to have a cat, Kudzu (Kudzucchini Big Fat Weenie). Poor thing…she wasn’t fat. I do songs too!!!

Yes, with my dogs. The male dogs name is Bramwell, we call him Brammy, Bram-a-lam, and the longest version is Bram-a-lam-a-ding-dong.
My female dogs name was Charlotte, we called her Char-Char, Char, Miss Charlotte, Miss Sissy and with both my dogs I call them Watson (of Sherlock Holmes fame). Too funny

Michelle, if I went into all the nicknames I have for the two dogs & two cats, this ‘bleat’ would take forever, lol! Lets just say that I doubt any of them are sure what their original name is anymore, 😮

It’s not just a girl thing. Our dog Pico (who looks amazingly like a goat) gets a new nickname every single day. Mostly because he will respond to anything said lovingly. Last week, while on a photo shoot, the photographer insisted on calling him Schifo. To which he came running, tail wagging.

I used to have a dog Peco (said Pico)! He was, not surprisingly, Picorino and also Rosco P. Coltrane (Dukes of Hazzard) 🙂

We have loads of nicknames for everyone around here. The dog gets the worst of it. He came with the unfortunate name “Mr. Tinkles” which we abbreviated to Mr. Tinks because frankly, he needed to outgrow the condition that prompted the name. Now we call him Mr. Stinkers when he’s in trouble and Tinky Toodles when we are loving him.

I tell my daughter to scooch magooch when i want her to move over 🙂 therefore love pinta’s new nickname.

Our family is so full of nicknames no one is ever referred to as their real name, and everyone has multiple versions depending on who is speaking.

I have been doing this from a young age, just thought it was totally normal. My grandmother i used to call ‘allgran’ (Mum reckons it was after ‘allbran’) but as a toddler it transmusted to Orgran – Orgie – and somewhere in my teenage years – The Snorg (oh how she hated that one!). My sister was called ‘poppy’ when she was born(had bulgy eyes), which changed to Popsy then boogsie/ Boogie/ boogs over the years. When she got a part time job at McDs her new nickname became ‘McDa’ which we now say/ write as Mictah (that was 15 years + ago but nicknames always stick!). Today i was mentioning to my daughter her Aunt Annemarie and she had NO IDEA who i was talking about; she only knows her as Aunty Boogsie or Mictah. Ha ha ha. My brother (Richard) = richy roo, khrishee, Khris, Kris, koigle, the Koig. Oh, and ‘slice’. Other sister (diana) = Dina, Byna, the bynes, wharebyna (pronounced fa-re-bai-na), faras. When we went to visit ‘Mictahs’ house once, inside the hotwater cupboard door someone had written ‘The Burians lived here’ and we ALL (individually) assumed it was my sister who wrote it. Then we found out is was actually the name of the previous house owners, oh how we laughed. We still send her letters addressed to ‘Mrs Farahbyna Burian’.

This now continues into my kids. S made up her own nickname age 1 (gua gua – while trying to say good girl) so we now call her ‘the gua’. Or da gua, gua gua, guagui, or guaguaguina. Now her brother (age 1) who can’t quite say guagui calls her ‘papi’ for some reason. Confuses the hell out of the Italians (italian for Dad).

Animals – hmm could fill your comment section right up so i will just mention a few. Thinking back to childhood can’t even rememebr the ‘real’ names of some of our cats, only their nicknames (Bung and Paonge)! Dog went from Finny – Finns – Little Finn – Finnegans – Finniscamolion (when bad) – roogs. GO figure!!
Cats: Spaz – Spazzy – Spazzeus, son = little spazzy/ spazzeuses.

Must say i do like your goat nickanmes, and yes, i DO think you are entirely normal!

PS if i ever had goats i think there would be some goaty/ oaty/ moaty/ woaty names going on in that mix…

Haha your family *is* full of nicknames! We don’t really do it with people too much…and nope, no goaty woaty, probably b/c I mostly speak to them in Italian 😉

Yes! Of course! I have pen names for all our animals! Robinella Buzzer Bomb becomes Buzz or Buzzer, Itty Bitty Opal Kitty is Bitty Bit, Bequia is Little Dog, Sammy is Sam-in-ator, Toe is Toe-ster, Spot is Spottie Wottie Doodle all the Day, Speck is Baby or SPECTACULAR! said with a lisp and lots of enthusiasm! Split Pea is Mimi… oh, it goes on and on and on! grin.

BUT I find as I age sometimes I look at an animal and want to say it’s name but out pops another animal’s name! Now, please tell me THAT happens to others too!

Haha YES that definitely happens to me too, Shanster; luckily I haven’t called Paolo “Pinta” or “Pasqualina” yet…but we didn’t make it easy with all those Ps! 😉 LOVE “Spectacular!”

I do this with my dog all the time. Ginger quickly became Gingy cakes then progressed to Gingy cake batter baby. I don’t know where it came from but it just rolled right off the tongue one day. My brother does this with his dog too and makes up little rhymes to go with her new nicknames. His dog is Bella a.k.a. Belldar the Great, smell Bell, stinkerBelle and my favorite Orca Belle (she grunts when she chases something). When we call them together it’s Ginger Roo and Bella Boo.

Love Pinters Magooch, that’s my fav too 🙂

Haha, one of my dogs is Stella…Stella Bella…Belarus 😉 Gingy cakes is adorable!

How fun!! My goaties have plenty of nicknames. Hollywood is Holly-Golly or Maholly or Maholly-golly-girlie. She is just happy to be called anything because I’m usually scratching her when I call her all these things. We had one called La Mutt who became Mutter-Nutter, and Sassy is Sassaroooooonie or Sassy-roo. Ginger is Gingeroo, Z-28 is Sugar Baby (’cause she’s so SWEET!), Peanut is Peeeee-nutter-butter, and so on. What would life be like without nicknames?!